Dumplings' Legend: my second experience

Meaning to head to Polpetto for dinner, being at the tail end of the usual time for dinner and having to wait at least an hour meant that the dinner party decided to change venues.

Somehow, we ended up at Dumplings’ Legend again (at least for me). We barely had to wait 5 minutes and we were seated and browsing the menu!

My previous experience was on a weekday where the buzz was relatively quieter. This time, it will be good to see how the food fares on a busy weekend night. The menu was designed to include variants of dishes from Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Hence, if you are familiar with any of those, you might just see a favourite dish of yours in here. That explains my initial puzzlement when browsing the menu and was wondering about my knowledge of regional dishes.

Seemed customary to order the Xiao Long Bao as requested by dinner party members. We went with a non-popular version this time. XLB with chicken in it. I actually think that this was better than the spicy version that I had the last time. The right thickness and texture and a juicy chicken filling greets you in the middle. At least with this one, you can taste the chicken, I couldn’t taste any spiciness in the previous version.

Nestle Shredded Beef £8.80

What can I say about this, the shredded beef actually came out cold. This has been sitting too long in the kitchen waiting to be served or was pre-made and someone forgot to reheat. Either scenario, it is still not desirable. This was such a disappointment. The Nestle was actually a basket of crispy white noodles that is a cop out to authenticity. Clearly, this dish was made to suit the British palate

Stir Fry Chicken with Crispy Milk Granules

For some reason, it didn’t taste as good as the first time I had it here, there were less crispy milk granules which reined down the taste of this dish a bit. Still a worthy option.

Deep Fried Squid with Salt and Pepper £8.80

Standard fare, nothing wow about it.

Steamed eggs with Thousand-year-old Egg & Salted Duck Egg £7.50

I’ve seen and read about this dish before, about combination of 3 different types of eggs being used in a steamed egg dish. I couldn’t wait to try this and have to say I wasn’t disappointed at all.

It has been steamed to just the right texture, slightly firm on the top and it becomes silkier and creamier below. Absolutely gorgeous, this dish was the winner of the night.

Stir-fried spicy morning glory £7.50

Standard stir-fry vegetables dish with morning glory being a vegetable that is nice to crunch into. There was a tad too much oil used in this.

My take on the second time round, consistency still needs to be worked on and there are hits and misses that are presented in the menu.

Dumplings' Legend, 15-16 Gerrard Street, Chinatown, London W1D 6JE
www.dumplingslegend.com